Rotary fluid handling device



June 11, 1968 MEZZETTA ROTARY FLUID HANDLING DEVICE Filed Feb. 21, 1966 A 6 m m l\ E 2 v H w M 5 Mn m m hm I R Q x L w\ w? 1 Q w E H Hf v W mm w m N mm P4 TEWT AGE/VT United States Patent 3,387,565 ROTARY FLUID HANDLEQG DEVHQE Louis Mezzetta, 8995 8th Ave, St. Michel, Quebec, Canada Filed Feb. 21, 1966, Ser. No. 528,971 2 Claims. (Cl. 103135) ABTRACT 6F THE DISCLGSURE The present invention concerns a rotary fluid handling device, such as a rotary internal combustion engine, comprising a cylindrical rotor rotatably mounted in a casing defining a raceway surrounding the rotor and having diametrically opposed portions concentric with and in sliding contact with the rotor and portions on each side of said concentric portion spaced from the rotor to define fluid chambers in the casing, said rotor carrying springurged piston curved blades bearing on said raceway, the peripheral surface of the rotor having cavities behind each piston blade, deepest adjacent the piston blade and tapering rearwardly and merging with the peripheral surface of the rotor, the casing having a transfer passage in communication with one chamber on one side of a concentric raceway portion and opening at its end within said concentric raceway portion, near but out of communication with the other fluid chamber, whereby fluid compressed in the first-named chamber will be transferred by said passage into a rotor cavity as said cavity moves opposite the discharge end of said transfer passage.

The present invention relates to a rotary fluid handling device, such as a rotary internal combustion engine, rotary fluid pump or rotary fluid motor.

The present invention relates more particularly to the type of fluid handling device of the character described, comprising a casing and a rotor rotatably mounted in said casing and provided with slots accommodating piston blades slidable within said slots for movement in and out of chambers defined by said casing and said rotor, for pushing fluid in said chambers or to be pushed by said fluid.

Various systems of the character described are known, but in most systems, the piston blades are individually mounted or arranged, are straight and movable in straight radial slots made in the rotor under either individual compression springs or by means of pins running in a cam groove. The fluid acting on, or being acted upon, by the radial blades causes a wedging of said blades within their slots, thereby increasing friction opposing the in-and-out movement of the blades with respect to the rotor.

In the type of rotary fluid handling device wherein the radial blades are moved by pins moving in a cam, there are problems in machining the cams and friction between the pins riding in the cam. In the type of devices in which the blades are urged outwardly by a compression spring, there are problems in the design of the compression spring of a small enough size to be accommodated within a rotary engine of relatively small dimensions and low horsepower and yet to achieve springs having a substantially uniform outward action on the radial blades so as to obtain as much as possible a uniform pressure of the blades on the radially inside raceway surface of the casing on which the blades ride.

The general object of the present invention resides therefore in the provision of a rotary fluid handling device, such as an internal combustion engine, fluid pump or fluid motor and the like, which is so designed that it will obviate the above-noted disadvantages; more specifically, in which the piston blade and piston blade accommodating slots in the rotor are curved in the shape of an "ice are of a circle and in which the blades are arranged in pairs within a common slot in the rotor and urged outwardly of the rotor by means of a common compression spring interposed between the two blades of the pair and abutting against the proximate ends of the blades, the arrangement being such that there is much less of a wedging action between the blades and the rotor during operation of the device and that, at any one time, the outward movement of one blade of the pair is compensated at least to 'a certain extent by the inward movement of the other blade of the pair, so that the common spring for the two blades of the pair is submitted to a limited range compression and elongation, whereby these common springs cause application of the blade tip against the casing raceway with a substantially practically uniform pressure throughout rotational movement of the rotor.

The foregoing and other objects of the present invention will become more apparent during the following disclosure and by referring to the drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a side elevation of the inside parts of an internal combustion engine, made in accordance with the principles of the invention, the cover plates of the rotor and of the casing being removed;

FIGURE 2 is a cross section on line 22 of FIGURE 1, of the rotary internal combustion engine made in accordance with the principles of the invention.

Referring now particularly to the drawings in which like reference characters indicate like elements throughout, numeral 1 designates the engine casing as a whole. Casing 1 consists of a ring member 2 providing annular recessed flat surfaces 3 at opposite side thereof, onto which are fitted circular cover plates 4 and 5 which are secured to ring member 2 by means of tie-bolts 6 or the like.

Casing 1 may be provided either with air cooling fins, if the engine is air-cooled, or with hollow passages for the circulation of cooling water, in the case of a water-cooled engine.

A rotor assembly '7 is rotatably mounted in casing 1.

This rotor is keyed at 8 to a cross shaft 9 extending through the casing cover plates 4 and journalled in bearings 10 carried by said casing cover plates in the center thereof.

Rotor assembly 7 consists of two circular rotor cover plates 11 secured and holding therebetween a central block 12 and two outer blocks 13 made of solid construction. The blocks 12 and 13 are so shaped and so secured to the cover plates 11 and therebetween by means of bolts 14 so as to define for the rotor assembly a truly circular outer cylindrical surface 15 and a pair of arcuate slots 16 which are each in the shape of a true arc of a circle.

Each slot 16 has its end portion opening at the outer surface 15 along an axis substantially at right angles to the tangent of said cylindrical surface 15 at said opening, as shown at 17. Moreover, the line connecting the centers of the two opposite arcuate slots 16 passes by the center of rotation of the rotor assembly 7 and the tangents to two said slots at said center are substantially perpendicular to said connecting line. Moreover, the two slots are of opposite curvature.

The radius of curvature of the two slots is such that the four openings 17 of the slots are angularly equally spaced along the peripheral outer cylindrical surface 15 of the rotor assembly 7.

A pair of piston blades is disposed in each slot 16. One pair comprises piston blades 18, 19 and the other pair consists of piston blades 20 and 21. Each piston blade is longitudinally curved along a radius curvature equal to the radius of curvature of slots 16 so as to be freely slidable in the slot to move in and out of the rotor at the peripheral outer cylindrical surface 15 of said rotor 7.

The proximate ends of the pair of piston blades 18, 19 are spaced apart and abut a common compression spring 22 disposed in the slot 16 between the two blades, so as to urge the two blades 18, 19 outwardly of the rotor. Similarly, a common spring 23 is disposed between the proximate end of the piston blade 29, 21 and urges the latter outwardly of the rotor.

The piston blades have preferably a flat rectangular cross-section and their outer ends have a transverse groove of semi-circular cross-section in which is fitted a semicircular sealing tip 24 rotatable with respect to the blade.

The sealing tips 24 of the blades are adapted to ride along a raceway defined by the inner surface of ring 2, while the lateral surface of the portion of the blade protruding from rotor 7 is adapted to ride in sliding contact with surfaces 25 of outer casing cover plates 4.

The above-noted raceway comprises portions 26 and 27 practically opposed on each side of shaft 9 which are truly circular in shape and co-axial with shaft 9 so as to slidably fit the cylindrical outer surface 15 of rotor as sembly 7.

Top raceway portion 26 has an included angle of about 70 degrees, while bottom raceway portion 27 has an included angle of about degrees.

A transverse spring-urged seal 28 is mounted in ring member 2 at the downstream end of the raceway top portion 26 relative to the direction of rotation of rotor 7, indicated by arrow 29. Similarly, a spring-urged seal 30 is mounted transversely of the bottom raceway portion 27 at the upstream end thereof.

The chamber of the casing in which the rotor is mounted and housed, is of irregular curvilinear circumferential contour or outline, as shown in FIGURE 1, to form end portions of the casing on each side of top and bottom circular portions 26 and 27, namely: in the case of an internal combustion engine a combustion chamber 31 and a compression chamber 32.

For such an engine, a spark plug 33, or glow plug, is exposed within the combustion chamber 31, just ahead of top seal 28 relative to the direction of rotation of the rotor.

An exhaust opening 34 is formed in ring 2 at the down stream end of the combustion chamber 31 and communicates with an exhaust tube 35. The fuel and air mixture come from a carburetor 36 and is discharged into the compression chamber at the upstream end of the same through gas intake ports 37 in communication with a transverse passage 38 made in casing 1 and communicating with the carburetor 36.

A compressed gas transfer passage 39 is made in ring 2 and opens within downstream end of compression chamber 32 just upstream from top circumferential portion 26 and opens into said top portion. 26 of the raceway just before the top seal 28.

Blocks 12 and 13 of the rotor are further provided with peripheral cavities 40 at the trailing face of each of the piston blades 18, 19, 20, and 21 with respect to the direction of rotation of the rotor.

Cavities 40 are deeper at their end adjacent the piston blade and gradually become shallower and finally merge with the outer cylindrical surface 15 of the rotor.

The center of the rotor is provided with an annular oil reservoir 41 serving to lubricate the piston blades 18 through passages 42. Casing 1 is supported by a suitable base 43 and brackets 44.

During rotation of the rotor in the direction of arrow 29, the piston blades 18 to 21 alternatively move in and out of the rotor, being always in contact with the raceway constituted by the inner surface of ring 2. However, due to the arrangement of the piston blade in pairs with the interposition of a common spring 22 or 23 the blades are applied against the raceway with a practically uniform pressure, because the common spring remains, to a certain extent, within the same state of compression.

It will be appreciated that, when blade 18 is opposite top raceway portion 26, and, therefore, when blade 18 is fully retracted, blade 19 is already out. Upon further rotation of the rotor, the blade 18 starts to move out of the rotor as blade 19 starts to move in. When blade 19 is opposite bottom raceway portion 27 and therefore in, blade 13 is still out and starts to move in as blade 1 starts to move out, and so on, whereby it is seen that there is, to a certain extent, compensating movement of the two blades resulting in a reduced degree of elongation and contraction of the common spring compared to a blade having its own individual spring. Thereby, the force with which the blades are applied against the raceway is much more uniform throughout the rotation of rotor 7.

Also, it has been found that the curved configuration of the piston blade and of the slot in which they are slidably mounted, results in less wedging action on said blade and, consequently, more freedom of sliding movement of said blades when said blades are subjected to lateral forces exerted by the combustion of the fuel mixture and when the blades are caused to compress the cases.

The operation of the internal combustion engine is as follows:

In the position shown in FIGURE 1, spark plug 33 ignites the compressed fuel and gas mixture behind blade 19. The spent gas mixture in the combustion chamber between blades 18 and 29 is being transferred to the exhaust port 34, while the spent gas in front of blade 2% has just finished being exhausted; blade 21 sucks fresh fuel mixture behind the same through intake port 37 and the fresh mixture ahead of blade 21 starts to be compressed by said blade, while blade 13 has just transferred the com pressed mixture through transfer passage 39 into the cavity 40 behind blade 19. Thus, there is an explosion taking place at each passage of a piston blade relative to the spark plug 33.

The transfer passage 38 could be made in the rotor instead of in the casing, in which case each piston blade would be associated with a transfer passage. Also, the number of pairs of blades could be increased if desired. Moreover, for an engine having four explosions per rotation, the number of blades could be doubled, that is by adding two pairs of blades of similarly curved 'construc tion and at right angles to the blades already shown in FIGURE 1, and arranged in slots generally at right angles to the slots in FIGURE 1. Thus, the additional blades will have their outer ends contiguous with the blades 18, 19, 2t), and 21 and serve as a double seal and, moreover, only the concave face of a blade will receive the explo sion impact.

A system of a rotor with curved blades in accordance with the invention can be used in a rotary rotor operated by steam or compressed air, or other compressed fluid or also in a rotary pump by suitable modifications of the intake and exhaust ports and by removal of the spark plug and of the transfer passage 39.

While a preferred embodiment in accordance with the invention has been illustrated and described, it is understood that various modifications may be resorted to with out departing from the scope of the appended claims.

What I claim is:

1. In a rotary fluid handling device, a casing, a cylindrical rotor rotatably mounted in said casing, said casing defining a raceway surrounding said rotor, said raceway having at least two diametrically opposed portions concentric with and in sliding contact with said rotor, the portions of said raceway on each side of said concentric portions being spaced from said rotor to define fluid chambers in said casing, said rotor having slots made therein, piston blades in said slots and spring means urging said piston blades in slidable contact with said raceways, said rotor having cavities made at its peripheral surface just behind each piston blade with respect to the direction of rotation of said rotor, said cavities being deepest adjacent the piston blade, tapering rearwardly and merging with the peripheral surface of said rotor, and a transfer passage made in said casing having an inlet end in communieation with the downstream end of that one of the chambers on the upstream side of one of said concentric raceway portions, said transfer passage having an outlet end opening into said last-named raceway portion but out of communication with the downstream chamber, relative to said one concentric raceway portion, whereby compressed gas fiuid is transferred through said passage from said upstream chamber into the cavity behind a piston blade as said cavity moves opposite the outlet end of said passage.

2. A device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said concentric raceway portion associated with said passage subtends a greater angle than the diametrically opposed concentric raceway portion.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 586,733 7/1897 Shepard 91-141 XR 2,540,714 2/1951 Curtis et al 230153 XR 2,887,060 5/1959 Adams et al. 103-136 XR 2,955,542 10/1960 Gaubatz 10313 6 XR 3,153,384 10/1964 Castle et a1 103-136 XR 3,169,375 2/1965 Velthuis 103-136 XR 3,237,567 3/1966 Hamilton 103136 FRED C. MATTERN, JR., Primary Examiner.

DONLEY J. STOCKING, Examiner.

T. R. HAMPSHIRE, Assistant Examiner. 

